Geography through Art, Part 1

For the student of Geography music and movies are often times the most economical and efficient way to see examples of the concepts, places, regions, and environments they are studying.  Recent posts have looked at music playlists for Natural Disasters and we wanted to know what other Geography topics lend themselves to using music or movies to teach the content. 

We asked Carolyn Coulter of Atlantic Cape CC how she would go about using music and movies to help teach the concept and theories of Geographies of Development to students and she shared with us some suggestions: 

Movie Illustration
Movie: Slumdog Millionaire  
Distributor: Fox Searchlight Pictures
Running Time: 121 minutes
Main Characters: Jamal Malik (Dev Patel), Salim Malik (Madhur Mittal), Latika (Freida Pinto)

Movie Summary
Jamal Malik spent his entire childhood living and working throughout the slums of India. As a young adult he suddenly finds himself a contestant on the wildly popular game show “Who Wants to be a Millionaire”. His impoverished life as an orphan on the streets of India is recalled through vignettes from his childhood and these memories parallel the questions that are asked of him on the game show. This film is a testament to the abject poverty that is experienced by hundreds of thousands of Jamal Malik’s all over the world.

Scene Descriptions
[Scene 1] Salim and Jamal are operating a business in which they charge money to patrons to use an outhouse that deposits directly into marshland. A movie celebrity flies into the area via helicopter while Jamal is using the outhouse that is intended for customers. His brother Salim seeks revenge on Jamal for lost wages due to Jamal using the outhouse by locking him in upon the arrival of the celebrity. Jamal only has one exit and he makes the decision to jump into the marshland that contains the deposits from the outhouse so that he can get an autograph from the celebrity.

[Scene 2] A bus full of young children are dropped off under a highway overpass and told “get to work” by Salim. Many of the children do not have shoes and it is unclear what exactly they will be doing for work. This is until Salim happens upon a baby and gives the baby to Latika and remarks “babies earn double”. The children scatter and spend the day on the streets of Mumbai begging for money. This is especially apparent when a young girl pantomime’s feeding herself in an attempt to get money from people in cars.

[Scene 3] Salim and Jamal are sitting atop a semi-constructed high building that overlooks the dharavi slums of Mumbai in which they grew up. The city looks much different now; Salim and Jamal are young adults now and the city itself has changed remarkably. Salim reflects and this as he points to the location that used to house the slums in which he and Jamal lived and worked as children.

Discussion Questions

1. How does the fact that Jamal and Salim work in an outhouse in Scene 1 indicate differing global levels of development?
2. What is happening in Scene 2 that might not happen in More Developed Countries? Why not?
3. How and why has Mumbai changed in terms of development in Scene 3?
4. How does Scene 3 make an argument for World-Systems Theory?

Song Illustration
Song Title: Why? (2:06)
Artist: Tracy Chapman
Album: Tracy Chapman
Label: Elektra/Wea

To view the lyrics click here.  Or you can go to iTunes to download the song.

Discussion Questions

1. What does the line “Why do the babies starve when there’s enough food to feed the world” indicate to you?
2. What might the singer mean when she says, “Why is a woman still not safe when she’s in her home”?

 

What movies or music would you add to this list?